The game of paintball has enjoyed great success in recent years and is a game in which two or more teams try to capture one another's flags. The players on each of the teams each carry a CO2 powered gun that shoots paintballs that are propelled by short bursts of the pressurized gas. Typically, paintballs are gelatin covered, spherical capsules having a diameter of approximately 11/16 of an inch that contain a colored liquid, and typically cannot withstand significant compression without breaking. When a player is hit with a paintball from an opponent's gun, the paintball ruptures and leaves a colored mark on the hit player who then must leave the game.
As the game of paintball has grown in sophistication, semi-automatic paintball guns, guns that sequentially fire paintballs as fast as the trigger can be repeatedly pulled by the user, have become more prevalent. A high firing rate capacity of semi-automatic paintball guns results in the occasional rupture or breakage of paintballs which leave shell or capsule particles and filler paint deposits on the inside surface of a paintball gun barrel. If there are paint deposits on the gun barrel, the next ball will likely be crushed and broken upon its leaving the barrel. Such deposits negatively affect the performance of the paintball gun.
The cleaning of the inside surface of the paintball gun barrel typically involves using a rod-like cleaning device such as disclosed in U.S. Design Pat. No. 393,115 issued Mar. 31, 1998 to Bell et al. One end of this device is provided with a series of spaced apart, disc-like wiping elements such that it is inserted into the barrel of the paintball gun and pulled through to expel the build up of deposits inside the barrel. This type of cleaning process is not ideally effective during paintball competition because it pushes residual paint back into the gun breech, which is where the paintballs are dropped into the barrel. Moreover, known cleaner designs come in varying lengths, which forces the player to buy two or more cleaners to properly fit the barrel length of their particular paintball guns.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for improved techniques for remove residual paint deposits from paintball gun barrels; in particular, there is a need for an approach that does not push paint into the gun's breech, and also efficiently accommodates various gun barrel lengths. Such a paintball barrel residual paint remover should be cost effective, highly portable, and very convenient to use.
The above referenced illustrations are not necessarily drawn to scale.